QTPlasmonics - Next generation of plasmonic integrated label free biosensing including optical, electrical and thermal active controls and readouts

生物传感器变得越来越重要，因为与健康相关的问题的需求需要监测越来越多的参数。在这些系统中，等离子体生物芯片系统由于其并行监测数百种表面生物相互作用而不需要标记步骤并且在真实的时间内允许访问这些相互作用的动力学的能力而变得越来越受欢迎。 由于等离子体系统对许多环境参数高度敏感，因此传统的等离子体生物传感器一直试图保持这些物理参数恒定，因为任何变化都会导致从被测生物分子反应测量的信号发生不必要的变化。最近在金属-电介质界面的微结构和纳米结构方面的进展为在非常精细的空间和时间尺度上局部控制物理参数开辟了道路。结果，不是维持恒定的环境条件，而是可以设想局部控制环境条件以增强等离子体传感器响应。该提案的目标是通过研究所谓的“纳米等离子体”系统中亚微米尺度上受控局部电和热空间变化的影响来推进等离子体领域。 最近，在复杂等离子体结构的建模和它们的制造方面都取得了重要进展。我在未来五年的研究计划旨在通过开发新的多参数系统来利用这些进步，这些系统既能够提高当前技术的能力，又能够获得有关正在调查的生物靶标的补充信息。应用将不仅包括传感器解决标记和生物危害在非常低或痕量浓度，但也实验表征其动力学，特别注意延伸到酶和细胞 这些新知识将有助于更好地理解和控制多物理等离子体元件，并有助于开发下一代生物芯片传感器，以满足重症监护、个性化医疗和药物发现中一些最迫切的需求。

Biosensors are becoming more and more important as the demand on health related issues requires the monitoring of more and more parameters. Within these, plasmonic biochip systems are becoming increasingly popular thanks to their ability to monitor in parallel hundreds of surface bio-interactions without the need of a labelling step and in real time allowing accessing the kinetics of these interactions. Since plasmonic systems are highly sensitive to a number of environmental parameters, conventional plasmonic biosensors have sought to keep these physical parameters constant as any variations lead to unwanted changes in the signal measured from the biomolecular reaction under test. Recent progress in micro- and nano-structuring of metal-dielectric interfaces has opened the way to localized control of physical parameters at very fine space and time scales. As a result, rather than maintain constant environmental conditions, one can instead envision locally controlling environmental conditions to enhance the plasmonic sensor response. The goal of this proposal is to advance the field of plasmonics by studying the effect of controlled local electrical and thermal spatial variations at the submicron scale in so-called “nanoplasmonic” systems. Recently, important advances have been made in both modeling of complex plasmonic structures and their fabrication. My research program over the next five years aims at capitalizing on these advances by developing novel multi-parameter systems capable of both enhancing the capabilities of current technologies and furthermore of accessing supplementary information about the bio-targets under investigation. Applications will include not only sensors addressing markers and biohazards at very low or trace concentration but also experimental characterization of their kinetics with special attention extending to enzymes and cells This new knowledge will lead both to better understanding and control of multi-physics plasmonic components as well as to the development of next-generation biochip sensors designed to address some of the most pressing needs in critical care, personalized medicine and drug discovery.